The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Continuing advances in semiconductor manufacturing processes have resulted in semiconductor devices with finer features and/or higher degrees of integration. Functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while feature size (i.e., the smallest component that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. This scaling-down process generally provides benefits by increasing production efficiency and lowering associated costs.
A chip package not only provides protection for semiconductor devices from environmental contaminants, but also provides a connection interface for the semiconductor devices packaged therein. One smaller type of packaging for semiconductor devices is a chip-scale package (CSP), in which a semiconductor die is placed on a substrate.
New packaging technologies have been developed to further improve the density and functions of semiconductor dies. These relatively new types of packaging technologies for semiconductor dies face manufacturing challenges.